~learning how to balance a life of mothering one child in Heaven and one child here in my arms...

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Vienne Updates - June '09

Well, this past week has been full of a few new things from our precious little girl.

Last week, while visiting Grandpa in Portland, Vienne took her very first 4 steps on her own, away from her Daddy's secure hand. It was very exciting and showed us that she may just be closer to fully walking on her own than we thought! She has grown very skilled at scaling the walls and really only needs one hand on the wall or furniture to get around. I think it's more for her own security than anything else...like she doesn't realize that she really can do it on her own. One characteristic I've really been noting about this little girl is that she is in no rush to acquire a new skill...or at least hasn't been up until this point. She takes her own leisurely time and doesn't need to prove anything. It's funny. Most kids I see are just so dang determined! She's totally skipped the crawling stage...and if I haven't mentioned before, we've already gotten a lot of flack about that one! Like you can control whether they crawl or don't! It's funny - this girl can pull herself up to standing position and pretty much navigate around any obstacle as long as she can have a grasp on one edge of it...but, if laying on her back she canNOT sit herself up to save her life! When on her back, she is like a beached whale flapping her arms until you sit her up or pick her up! Isn't that weird?? I know she'll learn it on her own, soon enough...but it is strange. She'll be walking on her own soon, but won't even know how to sit up on her own....like a turtle flipped on it's back!

Well, along with this new realization that she is sooooo close to walking, she has just actually given up the interest in scaling the walls in preference to holding our hand and walking her all around the house, in circles, back and forth. It's terrible and tiring. And, of course since I am not game to do this for more than one loop around the house, she has begun to reveal her first selfish tantrums! I experienced the very first full-body fit just the night before last. It was sooo strange for me to watch! Let me explain - this girl has been sooo mild-tempered and easily consoled and distracted. Now, she knows what she wants and it's all that's on her mind and she will scream to get it...finally showing that 'determination' that I thought she lacked! I was a kindergarten teacher for like 4 years...I've seen my fair share of fits, so I don't give in too easily. I just stood over her and watched her thrash until she calmed down, panting and gasping for breath. Then I held her until she was breathing normal. Once she was calm and content, I let her walk just a bit. But, I want to nip this in the butt as soon as I can...I am not one who will placate her through her tantrums and give her what she wants. But, man oh man, it is so ugly to see this new side of your child! I should also add in, though, that that night we discovered a new tooth that just broke through the surface that day...thus, most likely explaining her dramatics and moodiness. Poor girl.

So, this week has been interesting...pushing a little toother forth and enduring many little fits. It's hard to get much done now when she's awake cuz she's so moody if she doesn't get to walk about, holding my hand. Eventually, I just sit her on her bum, or leave her holding onto the couch and tell her that if she wants to walk that she needs to do it on her own. Yeah, that's not getting across to her too well...but, that's my mentality! Anyone have any suggestions for how they've dealt with their baby's tantrums??

Through all of this, Vienne surprised us the other night by sleeping fully through the night! What a treat for me! So, despite the fact that she is breaking a tooth forth, I am going to go ahead and start weaning her from her one night time feeding...which, I know, is against the books. "They" instruct you to wait til their body is not going though anything traumatic, but I think she is ready and I want to follow through with what she accomplished the other night by doing it all on her own. So, that's my new endeavor...maybe this Mama will be more refreshed and rested through the days! yay!

Here are a few pictures...

This is my "mild baby" - the one who sits on the counter and plays with garlic cloves for 20-30 minutes while I cook. But, this is soon to change, I am learning!

2 comments:

Happy Friday my beautiful friend! Thanks for the garage sale tips this week on my post - we are ready for the weekend now.

Here's a tip for ya - teach her to roll on her tummy (from her back). Instead of lifting her up to a sitting position, gently use one of her hands to pull her to the side and complete a roll over to her tummy. Be consistent, even say the word aloud - roll over, roll over, etc. and she'll eventually learn it and will get the idea to try it herself. From there, crawling can come more naturally. What you described happened to my friends child as well. From the tummy position, she would lift up their butt and tuck their knees to a kneeling position and then let the baby do the rest. She'll probably immediately spread out her feet to lay flat again but again repetative teaching seems to work at this stage because words go right over their heads sometimes. ha ha

As for the trantrums, your doing the right thing, being strong. It's a learned behavior for them to see what actions get desired responses. Kind of like the screaming thing. When my kids were experimenting with that, every time they screamed, I would stop what I was doing and immediatley take them out in the backyard and tell them to scream outside. When they were done, we would return inside the house. This can be exhausting for you and your Man, but it seemed to work in less than a month for both of them. They learned that it was okay to scream outide (whether it was a mad scream or fun screaming with delite) but inside the house, they had to have normal voices. This made for shopping and visiting friends in their homes more enjoyable too!

Today is the last day of school and I'm as excited as the kids. ha ha Have a great weekend!

Hi there! Yep, I'm not on Facebook anymore, I rarely went on it anyway because I use email the most to communicate and when I was on it, I was on it for hours talking to everybody! It was like being on the phone with my friends at the same time. ha ha Not a good use of my time. ha ha

The school offers a summer program that the kids love filled with some academics of math, language and writing. They also do something different everyday for their activity which are swimming at the water park, roller skating, minature golf, field trips to all over (this week was a rock climbing type place), bowling, free movies at the theatre, the list goes on... yep the life of a kid, they have it so good they don't even KNOW how good they have it. I was a latch key kid so I spent my summer days and after school time home alone. I would never do that in todays world but 30 years ago it was a different world. ha ha

About Me

My name is Jenny. I am a stay at home mom, with two beautiful little girls - one on this earth, and one now in Heaven. This blog was once started in 2011, as a place to quickly jot down my precious oldest daughter's darling anecdotes and random events...intended as a gift to her, in her later years. Much to our devastation and dismay, our beautiful Vienne Juliet abruptly and shocklingly passed away on September 6, 2012 from Myocarditis at the age of 4 1/2. This blog, now, is a place to share memories of her and share who she was. It has also become my personal grieving journal as we traverse through this new life without her. We will never recover from this horrific loss, but we hope to keep her alive in our hearts through this blog and other avenues. We just want people to know her...to know how extraordinarily incredible she was. May she touch your heart, as she did everyone around her.